Life in a WarzoneReading the short story “The Things they carried,” by Tim O Brien, creates a mesmerizing image of a war zone. It describes the tough war times for American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War. The story is a literary portrayal of the material and mental pressures on the soldiers, who strive to survive physically and mentally in the war. “The things they carried” talks about how heavily equipped are American Soldiers, and how a group of them carried numerous tools and weapons as war materials. It presents the environment of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and fellow soldiers. They used to be loaded with survival goods and weapons all the time during Vietnam War. They carried all possible equipments such as toothbrushes, lighters, chewing gum, food rations, and personal bibles to M-16s, mine detectors, and more or less sophisticated weapons and ammunition. They carried tremendous weights of various massively heavy and calculably light resources. Lieutenant Cross and his associates were also aware of the burden of weight they carried as mentioned in paragraph 12 “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of things they carried.” Behind the fascinating description of the equipment the soldiers carried in Vietnam. There is tough exchange of emotional energies around Lieutenant Cross and his soldiers. The war atmosphere is devastating, and soldiers are going through a torment living up to it. Troops get tired physically and mentally fighting in the dirty war setting. Explained in paragraph 39 “They carried lice and ringworm…They carried the land itself-Vietnam, the place, the soil-a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boot, their fatigues and faces,” portrays that the soldiers would get tired and dirty because of the extremely tough surroundings. Furthermore, this statement also signifies some pain that the soldiers felt while they did their job. The soldiers had strong...

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"The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien. At first it seemed to be just another war story. As I started reading I thought I was not going to have any interest at all in the story; however after I got into the story I found myself more interested than I thought I was going to be. This story is an excellent representation of war itself. It is very realistic and easy to relate to even without any personal experience with war. The...

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In “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien the theme of “carrying” both physical and emotional objects by the main characters can be found in the novel. While these men carry the same standard physical army gear, they differentiate with personal tangible and intangible items. From Lieutenant Cross’s responsibility of his men, to Henry...

...O’Brien’s own images and past experiences he encountered in the Vietnam War gave him inspiration to write the story “The Things They Carried.” O’Brien tells the story in third person narrative form about Lt. Jimmy Cross and his platoon of young American men in the Vietnam War. In “The Things They Carried” we can see differences and similarities between the characters by the things they hold close to them.
In this...

...The things they carried,by Tim O'brien
"Oh man, you fuckin' trashed the fucker. You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like fuckin' Shredded Wheat." I chose to start off my essay with this particular exert from the book because I think that it very much represents the story in itself. Azar said this, after Tim (supposedly) killed a Vietnamese soldier with a hand grenade. It shows that in times of war, how callous men can...

...“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story base on the lives of a group of soldiers during the later years of the war in Vietnam. In this story, O’Brien examines the burdens of the soldiers and the effects that these burdens can have on man in life-threatening situations. The author describes these burdens referring to the weight that the soldiers carry. These soldiers have to go trough great physical strain but also mental and emotional...

...Worth The Weight?
“War is hell,” a famous quote from General William Tecumseh Sherman. In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, we perceive the hell that men in war undergo. This enticing story is about the personal, mental, and physical hardships of soldiers in the Vietnam War. The title is revealing to the story itself by describing the items the soldiers carried. The tangible items that they lugged around are listed to the reader, but we are...

...The Things They Carried Essay
In the book The Things They Carried guilt plays a huge role in how the men react and carry themselves. How does the guilt affect the men and how they carry themselves? In the book, the men in Alpha Company felt guilt for many things. Some felt guilty from killing while others from letting people get killed. In a way everyone feels guilty from something different, but yet they are...

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“The Things They Carried”
Thesis Statement: In “The Things They Carried,” the soldier uses physical objects to calm their secret fears. This symbolizes emotions, spiritual burdens within the objects that symbolize times, places, and also what they feared. Another thing we are not aware of is when the author mentions dust which is a constant reminder to the soldiers that they are not safe.
In this short story the...